Not that he would. Kings didn’t run. Kings didn’t hide.
But then if that were true, why wasn’t he over at Katie’s house right now, demanding she listen to him? Grumbling, he stood up, walked to the window of his office and stared out at the view without even seeing it. The ocean could have dried up for all the notice he gave it. There might as well have been empty sand dunes stretching out into eternity out there. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing did.
He’d tried going back to his life, but it was a damned empty one. Hell, he couldn’t even go into his hotel suite anymore. The silence was too much to take. So instead, he stayed here. At the office. He’d been sleeping on the damn couch, if you could call it sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Katie, as she had been that last night. Quivering in his arms. Kissing him breathless. Then finally, staring at him out of hurt-filled eyes. And if he had been able to figure out how to do it, he’d have punched his own face in days ago.
The intercom buzzed and he walked to stab a finger at the button. “Damn it, Janice, I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Yes, but there’s—” she said, then added, “Wait! You can’t go in!” just before his office door crashed open.
Katie stood in the doorway, her green eyes flashing at him dangerously. Her hair was a wild tumble of curls around her shoulders. She wore a black skirt, a red button-down shirt that was opened enough that he could see where her silver necklace dipped into the valley of her br**sts. And she was wearing those black high heels she’d been wearing their last night together.
Altogether, she looked like a woman dressed for seduction. But with the fury in her eyes, any man she was aimed at might not survive. Rafe was willing to take his chances. And if she did end up putting him down, he couldn’t think of a better way to go.
“Sorry,” Janice was saying as she brushed past Katie with a frown. “She got past me and—”
“It’s okay, Janice. Close the door on your way out.”
“Yes sir,” she said and, though curiosity was stamped on her face, she did what he asked and left he and Katie alone.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, knowing that for the understatement of the century.
“It won’t be in a minute,” Katie promised and stalked toward him like an avenging angel on a mission. She dipped one hand into the black purse hanging off her shoulder and came back up with a folded newspaper.
Once she had it, she threw it at him. He caught it instinctively and gave it a quick glance. Ah. Now he knew what was behind the fresh fury driving her. And weirdly, it gave him a shot of hope that she wasn’t lost to him completely since that picture had definitely pissed her off.
“Did you think I wouldn’t see it?” she said, her voice little more than a snarl. “Or was it just that you didn’t care if I saw it? Game over, bet won, moving on? Was that it?”
“It wasn’t a game, Katie,” he said and his tone was as tight as the tension coiled inside him. “I told you that. Or I tried to.”
“And I should believe you,” she said, dropping her purse onto the closest chair and stabbing one finger at the newspaper he tossed to his desk. “Because clearly you missed me so much you had to rush out and drown your sorrows in that blonde double D.”
He grinned at her, even knowing that would only feed the flames of her wrath. Rafe couldn’t help himself. Hell, he could hardly believe she was standing here. Even gloriously furious, she was the only woman who could make his heart lift out of the darkness he carried inside him. The only woman who made him want to smile. Who made him want to promise her any damn thing she wanted as long as she never left him again.
He thought briefly about what Cordell had said at the restaurant the other night. Another King bites the dust. He’d argued the point then, out of sheer stubbornness and a refusal to see the truth for what it was.
But now that Katie was standing here in front of him, bubbling with a fury that had her green eyes flashing like fireworks, he knew he couldn’t deny the facts any longer. Not even to himself. More importantly, he didn’t want to.
He was in love for the first time in his life.
And damned if he’d lose her.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she warned.
“Not laughing.” Reaching out, he grabbed hold of her shoulders and only tightened his grip when she tried to twist free. “Katie, that blonde is an actress. Under contract to my cousin Jefferson’s film company. I had to go to the charity thing anyway and he asked me to escort her to get her some media.”
She wasn’t mollified. “And I should believe that why?”
“Because she was boring and vapid and I had a terrible time because she wasn’t you. And…because I won’t lie to you again, Katie.”
Some of the fight went out of her. The rigidity in her shoulders faded enough that he risked easing his grip on her. She didn’t step away from him when she had the opportunity and Rafe silently considered that a good sign.
“I miss you,” he said before he could gauge his words and try to predict her reaction.
Her delectable mouth flattened into a grim line. “I’m still furious with you.”
“I get that.” But she was here and he was taking that as a good sign. She looked up at him with those gorgeous green eyes and Rafe knew that he had only this one shot. This one chance to redeem himself. To somehow salvage the most important relationship he’d ever known.
So the words came slowly, but they came.
Words he had never thought to say to anyone.
“I wasn’t ready for you,” he started and read the confusion in her eyes. “The bet with Joe? It shouldn’t have been a big deal. But then I met you and found out you hated the Kings and I knew if I told you the truth, you’d never look at me again.”
She frowned, and bit into her bottom lip as if trying to keep herself from talking so that she could hear him out completely.
“I told myself that I wanted to change your mind about the King family,” he said and watched a flash of something in her eyes come and go. “But it wasn’t only that. Like I said, I knew you’d never look at me again if you knew. And I wanted you to look at me, Katie,” he said, shifting one hand to cup her cheek. “I wanted a lot more than that, too.”
“You got more, Rafe,” she said, her voice so quiet he had to strain to hear her. “You got more than I ever gave anyone before. I loved you. So when I found out you had lied to me, it hurt far deeper than anything Cordell made me feel.”